Careless Love
by Amaniachwen
Summary: Kagome feels that Inu-Yasha doesn't care about her feelings. When Inu-Yasha returns, he's in for a bit of surprise, and Kagome's not helping one bit. Sango and Miroku hilarity, as well!


Careless Love  
  
Chapter One  
  
  
  
  
  
The edge of the well.  
  
It was special, in a way. She was on the verge of entering another world, but it was her world, just at a different point in time. Both were one and the same. How strange to think that here in her time all those people there were now dead. They were. are. so alive to her, so real, but to them she was.what was she? Nothing? A dream? She wasn't either of those. She was Kagome, their friend, and their Shikon shard detector. She was a member of the group, but occasionally she would wonder why she was. Was it from guilt of breaking the Jewel of Four Souls that she felt obligated, or did she truly want to help them?  
  
Why was she thinking so much? She wasn't one to dwell on such thoughts. Several things came to mind that were much more important than herself. As long as she was alive and healthy, she shouldn't have anything to worry about.  
  
"I'll be seeing Inu-Yasha and everyone soon," she thought aloud.  
  
With that comforting thought, Kagome jumped into the well, into a realm of demons and adventure where her other life and friends awaited her.  
  
*****  
  
"I'm back!" Kagome greeted cheerfully.  
  
"Hi, Kagome!" Shippou cried. He leapt to her shoulder and snuggled his mischievous face into her hair as she patted his back with one hand and pushed his bushy tail out of her face with her other, so she could look at her other friends assembled in Kaede's hut.  
  
"I'm glad to see you are in good health, Lady Kagome," Miroku said.  
  
"Ditto," Kagome replied with a wink, causing the lecherous monk to wonder if he might have a chance with her. She guessed at what he was thinking and firmly said, "No, Miroku."  
  
"Ah, Lady Kagome," he said with a short sigh, "you play with my mind."  
  
"That's the only thing of yours I'm going to play with, too," Kagome declared, placing her hands on her hips and turning her head.  
  
Sango, who had been mending a small tear in her kimono, let out a laugh, but the naïve Shippou wore a puzzled expression upon his generally sweet face.  
  
Kagome smiled at Sango, and sadly recognized how rare it was that anyone heard a laugh from her. Considering the older girl's past and what awaited her -or really what didn't await her-, Kagome was baffled as to how her friend was maintaining her sanity.  
  
Then she realized something.  
  
"Where's Inu-Yasha?" Kagome asked, finally noticing that dog-boy was nowhere to be seen.  
  
Miroku shrugged, and said, "We assumed he was waiting for you at the well."  
  
"Well, he wasn't," she told them. "I wonder if he's okay?"  
  
"Don't worry, Kagome," Shippou comforted, surfacing from the waves of her thick, black hair. "The only way to kill that hanyou is to crush his head, but he's so hardheaded it wouldn't work!"  
  
Kagome smiled. "That's probably true," she thought. "Still.."  
  
*****  
  
The next day was spent exterminating a demon from a small village not even half a day's trek from Kaede's. In return for the demon's death, the eldest of the village allowed the group to stay in his hut for the night and to keep the shikon shard the demon had carried.  
  
"If Inu-Yasha were here, he would have told the eldest that our keeping the shard went without question. Then he'd have made some other rude comment, and Miroku would have bonked him on the head with his staff as he always did," Kagome thought. She mentally smacked herself. "Quit talking like he's dead, Kagome! He's not! At least, the last time I saw him, he wasn't.."  
  
She physically smacked her forehead.  
  
Shippou looked up at her from his perch in the window from which he occasionally felt a refreshing breeze. "Is it Myouga?" he asked since a person usually did not smack oneself unless the blood-sucking flea demon was permitting himself a taste without consent from the host.  
  
"No," Kagome sighed. "Myouga probably wouldn't show up unless Inu-Yasha were here, but he's not.."  
  
"Inu-Yasha is fine, Lady Kagome," Miroku said with an encouraging smile.  
  
She nodded, but her thoughts seemed to have wandered.  
  
Sitting against the wall, Sango leaned her head back and an uncomfortable moan escaped her exposed throat. "It is so hot! One would think it would at least be cooler in the evening!"  
  
"It's that mangy fox's fault! His fluffy butt is blocking the breeze from coming through the window! That's what Inu-Yasha would say if he were here.." Kagome unintentionally mused.  
  
"Would you like to borrow my fan, Sango?" Shippou offered, holding it out to her.  
  
Sango nodded, accepted it, and began to fan herself. "How very kind of you," she told Shippou politely, but displeasure tugged her face into an unbecoming frown as she discerned that the fan had very little effect.  
  
"It would be much cooler if you took off your clothes," Miroku suggested innocently.  
  
"If it weren't so hot," Sango said irritably, "I might argue with you, but tonight I will not waste my breath."  
  
"If you feel the need to waste your breath, be my guest, Lady Sango, for I will replenish it with my own."  
  
"You just don't stop, do you?!" Sango growled.  
  
"I can keep it up all through the night," Miroku replied poetically (though he had quite a different meaning), "past the dawn of the sun, and into the hours of the day when the sun is at its climax."  
  
Sango grabbed the closest thing to her and flung it at Miroku.  
  
Shippou screamed as he sailed through the air.  
  
Miroku received not only a direct whack to the face, but a mouth full of fox hair.  
  
Kagome laughed and, for the time being, forgot her thoughts.  
  
*****  
  
Early the next morning, Kagome woke up to a face full of Shippou's hair. Realizing she was the only member of the group awake, she silently rolled over onto her stomach and scooched slowly to her knees. She opened her mouth to yawn, but found that her mouth was covered with fox hair. Groggily, she brushed the hair away from her lips and scraped a few strands off her tongue. She then stood and clumsily tiptoed to the door. Attempting to avoid any splinters, she slid the door open, and a small spot floating in front of her caught her eye. She stared at it, puzzled. Her semi-open eyes followed it like a dumb-founded ogre. She watched a light morning breeze make it swing back through the doorway. It missed her chest, but it kept riding the wind back, coming ever closer. A single line reached out, missed. Reached out again, and missed. Kagome began to recognize what it was when it connected to her shirt, and there it was.  
  
A spider was on her chest.  
  
Kagome inhaled a scream, which was a sound like a suffocating person sucking in the last breath they would ever claim. Her hand flew to her chest and swiped the spider away. The arachnid dropped to the ground and scuttled into the darkness.  
  
Panting, Kagome checked to see if she had disturbed anyone. Without Kagome's warmth, Shippou had rolled over to Sango. Miroku was propped against the wall, and every now and then, unceremoniously scratched himself. Kagome wasn't sure why Miroku was a monk and was certain she would never know.  
  
Much more awake than before, she trailed the path down to a small pond just outside the village. She sat down at the bank and let her feet soak in the chilly water.  
  
"It's so quiet," she uttered. "I almost feel.lonely, but in a good way."  
  
"I don't have the chance to be by myself very often. It's nice, really. I can actually think without interruptions. Now that I actually have this opportunity, I don't know what to think. Well, I can't help but wonder what Inu-Yasha is doing or where he is. He doesn't exactly have any other friends that I know of and no other place to go, though he's rather secretive, so maybe there are things about Inu-Yasha that I'll never know. We don't talk very much, but sometimes when we do, he tells me stuff. I wish I knew more. Like where he is for example. Where is he? Is he in trouble? Is he hurt? Is he sad? Is he cold? Is he even aware that I'm practically out of my mind with worry, that JERK!? Does he not care about my feelings at all!?"  
  
She buried her face in her hands and tried to cease thinking all together. Breathing slowly, she whispered to herself, "Swat him with a rolled up newspaper, Kagome, just swat him."  
  
A moment later she opened her eyes and witnessed the sun's first rays of light glistening across the water's surface. It shone with such purity that Kagome didn't have to tell herself to quit thinking. She just stopped. Everything was reflected in the clear, perfect water. She could see the trees on the side adjacent to hers swaying and the opposite bank's grass dripping the sweet dew of the morning. The sky was speckled with clouds that would soon vanish as the sun continued to seep through. Profiling part of one cloud's circumference was a bit of silver lining. All of this was mirrored in the pond. There was two of everything. It was balanced. One place canceled out the other. Two worlds. Her hand unconsciously slipped past the edge of the pond and reached out as if to see if it really was just a reflection.  
  
"The edge," she murmured. "Just like the edge of the well.."  
  
But she couldn't see her reflection.  
  
  
  
  
  
Author's Note:  
  
To those of you who read my other Inu-Yasha fanfics (cough cough Past and Present Intertwine and Unfortunate Triangle cough cough), I'm not neglecting them, I swear! I already had most of this typed up, but it just didn't feel right, so I changed some things and voila! This is the story I now have. Is it better? I don't know. Will it have some awesome romance? Boom boom yes! I had a brainstorm for this last night, and I really think you guys will like it, so please just give this a chance. It won't even be very long, maybe three chapters or so. Possibly four. They won't be long long chapters as far as I know. We'll see what I do over Christmas break. Ima get down on these fanfics, I promise! Yeek yeek! I can't wait till you guys read the romance. A ha ha ha ha! *scoots off* *scoots back* Also, I absolutely loved writing the bit about Sango and Miroku. I'm so witty sometimes, I even make my self laugh! I hope you think I'm witty, too, because if I am not, I'm giving myself false praise, and that is a rather sad and pathetic thing. ;.; I hope most of you caught my word plays I suppose you could call them. For example, Miroku unceremoniously scratched himself. Get it? He's a monk, ceremony. Hyuck Hyuck. Well, I liked it. *scoots away with little squishy tears in her eyes* 


End file.
